There is a discrepancy between the coordinates of this submission and the image on the thumbnail (which has now been fixed).

The coordinates point to the Northwest Ruffner mountain top surface mine, operated by Cardinal Coal Services and covering an area of 1335.69 acres. (The map no longer points to this mine; it is located at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Yolyn,+WV&t=k&ll=37.817107,-81.862221&spn=0.030783,0.086517&t=k)

The thumbnail displays an image of the Twilight surface mine, operated by Bundy Auger Mining and Independence Coal Company, and covers an area of 3428.57 acres. (The coordinates now correctly match this mine.)

Are you saying that the submitted thumbnail did not open the Google map so as to be centered on the cited map? I have given everything a dry run before submission and the process seemed to click. It would seem to me that precision in citing of datasets down to exact mine names would only be useful to the greater audience of this site if they were aspiring resource regulators or deregulators, contingent to ones degree of social conscience in the aftermath of such extraction methods.

I am of the long view. Once the Earth has cast off our pernicious species and the processes of erosion, deposition, and subduction have had their way over time, human excesses will be errased from the global image. Now that is intelligent design - the trial and error method of choosing the stewardship species.

I think what likely happened is that when you were "arrowing west" as you mention in your description you might have inadvertenly linked to one of the mines to the west, which differs from when you captured the thumbnail. I've done it myself on more than one occasion...

Mostly I just wanted to make sure that your intention as a submitter was reflected in the final submission, not knowing which mine you had intended to submit.

As for the exact mine name, I'm just an obsessively detail oriented individual when it comes to this sort of thing... (putting it mildly, some might say). I figure most things have names and enjoy the challenge that can come when tracking those names down. On the other hand I do feel that it is perfectly acceptable to draw attention to an area or phenomenon as an example of a greater group of such things, in this case mountain top mining, and I've submitted maps like that myself. That being said, with all the recent mining accidents from WV in the news lately, sometimes knowing which mine is which can be an interesting thing to add.

What's fascinating to me is that after submitting maps and exploring GGT for a month or so it seems that most people wind up with their own "philosophy" of sorts when it comes to what they submit and what they think makes for a good submission, and it's neat to see different people's ideas.

Then we are quite simpatico. I have a passion for detail and jocular hair splitting. I have had the good fortune to do a lot of travel on someone else’s nickel. I have been on the ground in the places that I have submitted so far. I delivered a truckload of business machines to a mining company office near Beckley several years ago. I got a mini tour of a work and was appalled. On a flight from Washington DC, to Little Rock I got to fly over a great deal of that in WV and KY.